( pictures ) http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150344630541978.421930.2810459197... Today - after a peaceful protest against the budget cuts on arts and culture in The Netherlands - our artistic director Olof van Winden and general manager Natasja van der Horst, got beaten down and arrested for no reason by the Dutch police. Protest against budget cuts on arts and culture / 27 June 2011 By TodaysArt <http://www.facebook.com/todaysart> (Albums<http://www.facebook.com/media/albums/?id=28104591977>) · Updated on Tuesday · Taken at The Hague On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 4:23 PM, Dante-Gabryell Monson < [email protected]> wrote:

http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2011/06/the-dark-age-netherlands

excerpt :

“A new Dark Age for Dutch Culture

“The letter ‘Meer dan kwaliteit’ (‘More than Quality’) by the State Secretary for Culture, Halbe Zijlstra (VVD, People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) arrived in the electronic mailboxes of Dutch art and cultural institutes on Friday, 10 June 2011. It stated that €200 million would be brutally slashed from the arts and culture budget, starting as early as 1 January 2013.

“Apparently, Zijlstra, who admits that he lacks any understanding of art and culture, has blatantly ignored all the recommendations made to him on this subject, including those from the Arts Council (the government’s official advisory body). Subsidies for a limited number of ‘world-class institutes’ such as the Nederlandse Opera, which already receive a substantial portion of the existing budget, will be maintained. As far as Zijlstra is concerned, most of the other institutes can disappear – they will no longer be able to rely on structural support from the government.

“This not only applies to all the production houses for theatres, half of the orchestras, the Muziekcentrum Nederland (formed in a recent merger), the Foundation Art and Public Domain (SKOR), renowned exhibition spaces and research facilities for visual art such as De Appel, but also to the entirely new media sector with its internationally acclaimed institutes such as V2_, the Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk), Mediamatic, WORM, the Waag Society and STEIM, as well as to the Rijksakademie, de Ateliers and the Jan van Eyck Academy. Support for critical-analytical journals such as Open and Metropolis M, and for the literary magazines, including De Gids, will be discontinued. Furthermore, the budget that will be allocated to project subsidies, i.e., for individual artists, one-off projects and festivals, will be more than halved. Only ‘international world-class talent’ and art that has already proven itself will remain.